You know, as much as we’ve been talking about space endlessly over the past few weeks, we’re happy to talk about it again. After all, the fact that there are literally people living just inside of earth’s orbit, floating around on the International Space Station is pretty mind-boggling no matter how much you think about it. A few ISS astronauts recently set to work putting up a new solar array, and they took a timelapse to capture the moment.
Gravity free workspace
The pair of astronauts are Thomas Pesquet of the ESA (European Space Agency) and Shane Kimbrough of NASA, and they spent 6 and a half hours missioning about the outside of the station. First, they brought out some new solar arrays, aligned them, and put them into place. This was the bulk of the work. They then prepped a second attachment point to get a head start on the next array they will inevitably have to set up.
At some point during the process, Shane’s helmet lights and camera, “partially detached” from his helmet, which might not sound like a massive deal to us earth dwellers, but if you drop something in space chances are you won’t see it again. Fortunately, Thomas was able to MacGyver the kit back onto Shane’s head with some wire. Good work, Thomas.
Aside from that, the mission went on without a hitch. Credit for the timelapse goes to Aki Hoshida, JAXA astronaut and the current ISS Commander. Thanks for the quick look at your day in the office.